"Thirty or 40 years ago, almost no one in the country played the game, and it takes time. Also, it's a question of tradition. So it takes time to get used to, to compete with the best teams in world, which you are doing now."

-- Former German great Franz Beckenbauer, who arrived at the New York Cosmos for the first year of Giants Stadium and was on hand Saturday night for the first game at nearby Red Bull Arena. (AP)

Well 33 years ago we actually could compete with the rest of the world to obtain a World Class player still reasonably in his prime... the West German Captain, some guy named Franz... but now because many spent money on everything and everyone with the slightest soccer pedigree... the current league in North America has gone too far in the other direction and needs to realize that there is such a thing as being so frugal that you start to undermine your own fan base. While there certainly a few players getting payed pretty well... until there is some means to develop our own players instead of depending on cast offs from Europe and South America, and when there is still limited money to attract more than one or two "Name" players per team... the league will continue to have problems, the first of which is that now as opposed to when I would happily head off to see the Kaiser play in the swamps of New Jersey... so much more high level televised soccer is available to be seen all over the continent on Television...and when fans can see Man U. or Barcelona...it's much harder to convince them that paying to see Salt Lake play Columbus is such an event. We are not alone in this... many countries have league matches that lack the fan base partly because they can't afford to compete with the EPL or Champions League broadcasts. And as a COSMOS fan...and Team or no Team now, I will ALWAYS be a COSMOS fan... but, while I wish the Red Bull well, I doubt I will ever feel the way I do about the departed COSMOS for the Red Bull... but building this Stadium certainly is a step in the right direction.